and my God are the same."

CHAPTER VIII. SURPRISE VALLEY
Back in that strange canyon, which Venters had found indeed a

valley of surprises, the wounded girl's whispered appeal, almost
a prayer, not to take her back to the rustlers crowned the events

of the last few days with a confounding climax. That she should
not want to return to them staggered Venters. Presently, as

logical thought returned, her appeal confirmed his first
impression--that she was more unfortunate than bad-- and he

experienced a sensation of gladness. If he had known before that
Oldring's Masked Rider was a woman his opinion would have been

formed and he would have considered her abandoned. But his first
knowledge had come when he lifted a white face quivering in a

convulsion of agony; he had heard God's name whispered by
blood-stained lips; through her solemn and awful eyes he had

caught a glimpse of her soul. And just now had come the entreaty
to him, "Don't--take--me--back--there!"

Once for all Venters's quick mind formed a permanent conception
of this poor girl. He based it, not upon what the chances of life

had made her, but upon the revelation of dark eyes that pierced
the infinite, upon a few pitiful, halting words that betrayed

failure and wrong and misery, yet breathed the truth of a tragic
fate rather than a natural leaning to evil.

"What's your name?" he inquired.
"Bess," she answered.

"Bess what?"
"That's enough--just Bess."

The red that deepened in her cheeks was not all the flush of
fever. Venters marveled anew, and this time at the tint of shame

in her face, at the momentary drooping of long lashes. She might
be a rustler's girl, but she was still capable of shame, she

might be dying, but she still clung to some little remnant of
honor.

"Very well, Bess. It doesn't matter," he said. "But this
matters--what shall I do with you?"

"Are--you--a rider?" she whispered.
"Not now. I was once. I drove the Withersteen herds. But T lost

my place--lost all I owned--and now I'm--I'm a sort of outcast.
My name's Bern Venters."

"You won't--take me--to Cottonwoods--or Glaze? I'd be--hanged."
"No, indeed. But I must do something with you. For it's not safe

for me here. I shot that rustler who was with you. Sooner or
later he'll be found, and then my tracks. I must find a safer

hiding-place where I can't be trailed."
"Leave me--here."

"Alone--to die!"
"Yes."

"I will not." Venters spoke shortly with a kind of ring in his
voice.

"What--do you want--to do--with me?" Her whispering grew
difficult, so low and faint that Venters had to stoop to hear

her.
"Why, let's see," he replied, slowly. "I'd like to take you some

place where I could watch by you, nurse you, till you're all
right."

"And--then?"
"Well, it'll be time to think of that when you're cured of your

wound. It's a bad one. And--Bess, if you don't want to live--if
you don't fight for life--you'll never--"

"Oh! I want--to live! I'm afraid--to die. But I'd
rather--die--than go back--to--to--"

"To Oldring?" asked Venters, interrupting her in turn.
Her lips moved in an affirmative.

"I promise not to take you back to him or to Cottonwoods or to
Glaze."

The mournfulearnestness of her gaze suddenly shone with
unutterable gratitude and wonder. And as suddenly Venters found

her eyes beautiful as he had never seen or felt beauty. They were
as dark blue as the sky at night. Then the flashing changed to a

long, thoughtful look, in which there was a wistful, unconscious
searching of his face, a look that trembled on the verge of hope

and trust.
"I'll try--to live," she said. The broken whisper just reached

his ears. "Do what--you want--with me."
"Rest then--don't worry--sleep," he replied.

Abruptly he arose, as if words had been decision for him, and
with a sharp command to the dogs he strode from the camp. Venters

was conscious of an indefiniteconflict of change within him. It
seemed to be a vague passing of old moods, a dim coalescing of

new forces, a moment of inexplicabletransition. He was both cast
down and uplifted. He wanted to think and think of the meaning,

but he resolutely dispelled emotion. His imperative need at
present was to find a safe retreat, and this called for

action.
So he set out. It still wanted several hours before dark. This

trip he turned to the left and wended his skulking way southward
a mile or more to the opening of the valley, where lay the

strange scrawled rocks. He did not, however, ventureboldly out
into the open sage, but clung to the right-hand wall and went

along that till its perpendicular line broke into the long
incline of bare stone.

Before proceeding farther he halted, studying the strange
character of this slope and realizing that a moving black object

could be seen far against such background. Before him ascended a
gradual swell of smooth stone. It was hard, polished, and full of

pockets worn by centuries of eddying rain-water. A hundred yards
up began a line of grotesque cedar-trees, and they extended along

the slope clear to its most southerly end. Beyond that end
Venters wanted to get, and he concluded the cedars, few as they

were, would afford some cover.
Therefore he climbed swiftly. The trees were farther up than he

had estimated, though he had from long habit made allowance for
the deceiving nature of distances in that country. When he gained

the cover of cedars he paused to rest and look, and it was then
he saw how the trees sprang from holes in the bare rock. Ages of

rain had run down the slope, circling, eddying in depressions,
wearing deep round holes. There had been dry seasons,

accumulations of dust, wind-blown seeds, and cedars rose
wonderfully out of solid rock. But these were not beautiful

cedars. They were gnarled, twisted into weird contortions, as if
growth were torture, dead at the tops, shrunken, gray, and old.

Theirs had been a bitter fight, and Venters felt a strange
sympathy for them. This country was hard on trees--and men.

He slipped from cedar to cedar, keeping them between him and the
open valley. As he progressed, the belt of trees widened and he

kept to its upper margin. He passed shady pockets half full of
water, and, as he marked the location for possible future need,

he reflected that there had been no rain since the winter snows.
From one of these shady holes a rabbit hopped out and squatted

down, laying its ears flat.
Venters wanted fresh meat now more than when he had only himself

to think of. But it would not do to fire his rifle there. So he
broke off a cedar branch and threw it. He crippled the rabbit,

which started to flounder up the slope. Venters did not wish to
lose the meat, and he never allowed crippled game to escape, to

die lingeringly in some covert. So after a careful glance below,
and back toward the canyon, he began to chase the rabbit.

The fact that rabbits generally ran uphill was not new to him.
But it presently seemed singular why this rabbit, that might have

escaped downward, chose to ascend the slope. Venters knew then